Programming languages: where to begin?

by

zafiro17@pipedot.org

in code on 2014-06-30 17:16 (#3PN)

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There's been tremendous evolution in the programming language space, as new coding philosophies and paradigms change over time to address old problems or new visions. But how to decide where to invest your time and energy?

Apple's new Swift language is the newborn on the block, and iOS developers seem to be impressed. Infoworld recommends nine languages that make writing Javascript a joy, if that's possible (coffeescript, gorillascript, typescript, and others). Venturebeat recommends you start with Javascript before moving onto something like Python or Ruby. The Google engineer who invented Dart, Gilad Bracha, deplores the dearth of viable programming languages that would allow the Web to compete with native code. CIO also recommends Javascript, but also suggests budding web designers also look into Opa, Scala, and Erlang, among others.

Or should you just throw in the towel, and have a little fun with something totally useless like Brainfuck, or the Arnold Schwartzenegger programming language?

Re: Where you start depends on where you want to end (Score: 1)

by kwerle@pipedot.org on 2014-07-01 06:08 (#2A8)

To be fair to your father, I think that ADA has improved in the past couple of decades (to toss out a wild guess). Certainly it improved a lot in the 90's. I had kind of a crappy time with it in the late 80's. Beta compiler with bugs. Very frustrating.

I don't care for the language because it doesn't subclass the way that I like.

Still, it has a bunch of really cool features, and as a learning tool it has a lot to offer.